Thursday, August 4, 2011

London's National Portrait Gallery pays tribute to that period when Hollywood film studios controlled the public's perception of their actors and actresses through the use of in-house portrait photographers. The show "Glamour of the Gods: Hollywood Portraits," is an exhibition of 70 vintage photographs from 1920 to 1960, and is currently on view until October 23.

Most of the prints come from the archive of the John Kobal Foundation, founded by the collector who began tracking down the photographers behind the glossy images in the 1950s and '60s, just as corporate takeovers of the big Hollywood studios began phasing out the promotional practice.
He continued to collect the photos until his death in 1991.

About Me

My pictures explore the strange anthropology of cities. The unusual and overlooked in the human landscape.
I am asking the viewer to question the idea that photographs as documents are complete representations of subject.
I'm interested in the universality of life and the idea of parallel lives - when one thing is happening here, something else is happening over there. The democracy of non-places fascinates me, in the knowledge that inevitably nothing is as it seems.
I work and live between Auckland and Paris.
http://harveybenge.com/
email:harvey.benge@xtra.co.nz